Driver who killed man at Glendale bakery crossed 4 lanes of traffic

A man was killed shortly after 12:30 p.m. Thursday when a Lexus coupe slammed into a bakery on East Broadway, injuring five others, police said.

The man, who was not immediately identified, was trapped under the vehicle at the Oledina’s Cake Factory in the 1100 block of East Broadway, where he was pronounced dead, Glendale police officials said.

The man was apparently hit while getting a cup of coffee, authorities said.

The 72-year-old Glendale motorist who was driving the car reportedly plowed through the front windows of the shop, striking and pinning the 55-year-old man against a counter, according to Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

He was reportedly standing at the side counter when the car crashed through the store, which is inside a strip mall.

Four others suffered “bumps and bruises” in the crash, Lorenz said. A woman, who was walking in the parking lot, was grazed by the car sideview mirror and was transported to a local hospital, he added.

While freak crash had a tragic end, the moments leading up to the incident were even more bizarre, officials said.

The motorist reportedly had just got her nails done at a salon across the street from the bakery on Broadway, when she entered her Lexus and, for unknown reasons, drove across the parking lot and into four traffic lanes — all without hitting any passing vehicles, Lorenz said.

As she drove “at a very high rate of speed,” she entered the second strip mall parking lot, ricocheted off of five vehicles, struck the pedestrian and slammed into the bakery, Lorenz said.

Police were still trying to determine how the crash occurred and whether some of the victims were inside the newly-opened cake shop when it happened.

Glendale police investigators were evaluating the woman at the station on Isabel Street. She had not been arrested as of Thursday afternoon.

-- Veronica Rocha, Times Community News

Follow Veronica Rocha on Google+ and on Twitter: @VeronicaRochaLA.